A Morning Musume, C-ute and associated fanblog

Main Menu

Morning Musume & TRF Collabo Labo subbed

H!F have subbed the recent appearance of Morning Musume on Collabo Labo. Basically this seems to be a show where two groups or artists who usually wouldn’t work together collaborate on covers of theirs and other peoples songs. Downloads are available from the tracker at Hello!Online in two formats here and here. This is a great show and is presented with very good picture quality (which of course is excellent because I do love screencapping as I’m sure you’ve noticed).

So what do we get? Well first of all we get Lovely’s opinion of TRF…

Then, since Morning Musume are going to dance to a song by TRF’s Male singer Sam, we get to see Sam instructing the Musume on the dance moves. On Christmas day no less. The song is called Overnight Sensation. ..

The dance lessons are also interspersed with more thoughts from Musume members…

But what we mostly get is dancing. Lots of it. Sam seems impressed with MM’s inability to actually stop. These girls work hard…

The programme then cuts to a Musume performance of Resonant Blue…

Then it’s back in time to the dance lesson and Sam tells Takahashi and Reina that they will be singing parts of Overnight Sensation usually taken by the female TRF singers. He’s just like Tsunku. Gives Lovely and Reina the spotlight. Life imitating art imitating life, etc…

Meanwhile the members continue dancing. Eri is looking particularly hot. And I don’t mean in the turn a fan on way…

The show then jumps to the performance and…hey this song is bloody good. I mean really. It’s also got quite a bit in the way of English lyrics too. The song was a big hit and won awards for TRF and it’s easy to see why. It might be a bit mean to say it but I wish some of MM’s recent singles could have been more like this. It fits them really well and I’d buy it in a shot. It’s a good performance of a good song…

Up next we get a collaboration between Takahashi and Yuki. They will sing Sade’s Smooth Operator as a duet. It will be sung entirely in English. During rehearsals Takahashi seems very shy so they decide to just jump right in…

Takahashi squeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Then it’s onto the performance. At times it is a bit Engrish (from both singers, neither of whom have sung this song before) but for the most part it’s beautifully sung. It’s also beautifully performed by the backing band. It kind of reminds me of how great some of the songs were on Hello Pro Hour when performed with proper muso instruments. The style for this is of course exactly the same as the Sade version and it’s great to hear a Musume singing such a classy song. It’s fair to say I would love to have this song as an mp3!

We then get MM singing their next single Nai Chau Kamo. I do love their clothes style in this…

It then flips back to Christmas day and we get to see the Musume exchanging gifts…

Then it’s onto the final collaboration. It’s Jimmy Saville DJ Koo with Morning Musume on my favourite MM song of all Renai Revolution 21. We get to see some of the rehearsals (including Niigaki playing around with the mixing equipment) and then the performance…

Then at the end of the show we get everyone’s thoughts…

Of all the subtitled work out there (H!F have hundreds and there are many other subbing groups too) this has been one of the most enjoyable to watch. If you were getting a bit jaded with Morning Musume watch this. In some ways it might actually make you think “if only” as when given some mature songs to sing you can see so much untapped potential. Maybe the idol image can work against them when it comes to the songs written for them. This is almost like watching the first generations of Morning Musume. It’s 5th to 8th gen doing some songs that would have suited the style of the 1st and 2nd generations. Then when we get something closer to the style of the current group, like with Renai Revolution 21, it’s beefed up to seem more modern. That’s not to say it’s as good as the original because it’s not but it does have a really strong sound. A better sound than any recent MM singles have had. It’s like Morning Musume the non-idol version. But like I said, if you have been feeling jaded with MM watch this. Because even if you do think there’s untapped potential you’ll learn to love the members all over again. The effort they put in and the performances they pull off show their talent and committment. The songs they collaborated on I would love to have on a cd. Now if only the people working with MM every day could produce some music that makes me feel the same. Because unfortunately too many recent singles have failed to deliver. Some of just sounded tired. It’s not the members who are tired but the production team behind the scenes. Jaded or not if you like MM then watch this. You’ll have the great pleasure in seeing them in a whole new light. Taken out of the usual H!P playground they rise to the challenge with aplomb (despite pre-performance nerves). Highly recommended.

Post navigation

6 responses to “Morning Musume & TRF Collabo Labo subbed”

I know what you mean about Smooth Operator…I’ve been trying to hint that someone should rip an mp3 of the performance, but no one at H!O seems to be taking the hint, and we aren’t allowed to directly request stuff over there, but darn it, I wants mah Ai-chan music!!!

Overnight Sensation would be nice to have as well, as would Renai Revolution 21.1, I really liked Koo’s DJ voice… 🙂

It sounds okay. Not to put them down, but when they sing non-MM songs, they are just okay: lack power and lack smoothness, which make it less enthusiastic. The dance and camera-work are much better though.

As for “smooth operator”, it’s not great by the fact that most people can understand English better than Engrish.

I don’t know…these days I think I can understand the Engrish better than I can understand the English from most singers who sing in English as a first language. Most rap music is 95% illegible and even good old fashioned pop can be a bugger to make out the lyrics too. Which reminds me of this great site – http://www.kissthisguy.com/

Besides which I live in a country where if you travel for 30 minutes by car you will come across people who speak with a totally different accent and can even use completely different words for things. To me the Engrish in Smooth Operator is just English with a Japanese accent. I can understand it easier than I can understand someone from Newcastle or Glasgow (generally. I mean even within cities there are people who speak with only minor accents or with none at all. My accent is very light for the area I’m from). Proper English is always dictated by some posh people somewhere in the south of England. Language is always in flux though. We don’t speak like Shakespeare. Every year the latest Oxford English dictionary has to admit this by adding more words simply because the non-posh people are actually allowed on tv or radio these days. Back in the early days of tv here in the UK you had to have a very standardised accent. This is no longer the case so the very language we speak evolves some more.

Well I’m not as familiar with the song (although I have heard it before). I think cover versions will always be compared unfavourably to originals unless they do something completely different. As this song was faithful to the original in terms of the music I guess for someone already familiar with the song it won’t stand up so much. However as Takahashi Ai is a total goddess and can do no wrong I still think this version is good. Of course I might just be slightly biased. 😀

But then I can listen to this version without too many preconceptions simply because I’m not too familiar with the original. I probably haven’t heard the original since I was sharing a bedroom with my brother (who had the album) probably at least 15 years ago if not more. It must be quite some time ago because it was the days of vinyl. Therefore an attractive older woman and my favourite Musume singing it together is pleasurable enough for me.